Before joining The Campaign Rafi served as Secretary-General of Parliamentarians for Global Action, a nonprofit organization of elected legislators in over 140 countries that works to promote peace, democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and gender equality. Rafi is a 1983 graduate of The Fletcher School.

Michael Caster: The previous process for selecting a Secretary-General came under criticism for a lack of transparency in how the Security Council made a decision in private and forwarded a single recommendation to the General Assembly for approval. How transparent do you expect the new process to be? Will it still defer to the same power players even if it’s done more in the open?

RAFI: There is a reality in the world now: everybody is constantly on social media, everyone is a known category, there are no hidden players anymore and everything else is taking place in a sort of fishbowl.

So when it comes to the UN Secretary-General, it has been the only one out of every inter-governmental institution where there haven’t been open candidates campaigning. The change to a more open process was long overdue. The push has come from everybody. Even the P5 have become increasingly uncomfortable with their role as the ones producing the candidates.

The player who has played quite a role in making this transparent has been the president of the General Assembly, former speaker of the Danish parliament [Mogens Lykketoft]. He wanted to give the General Assembly more power under something called the Revitalization of the General Assembly, a sort of rebalance of the UN power system.

He took the reins in both hands and insisted on holding hearings in April 2016 in which the candidates were forced to send in their nominations with their written vision statements and had to come to a meeting with members of the General Assembly.

I don’t know how transparent it really is. While Member States could ask questions from the floor, civil society managed was forced to put questions prerecorded by people they had preselected and it wasn’t clear half the time who these people were. I wasn’t too pleased with that because those of us with civil society are capable of asking from the floor as well. Also, each male candidate had two questions from civil society; each female candidate had three. This difference in treatment didn’t make any sense.

The decision will still be made by the Security Council and they haven’t set themselves a hard deadline. There’s a soft deadline, that by July they hope to open all dossiers that have been received, which means that those who want to be Secretary-General of the UN should have indicated their interest by July.

MC: What happens in September?

RAFI: The process itself is going to take a few months. Their deliberations will start in July, which is when Japan is president of the Security Council.

Then it goes back to the same process as has been previously used. The Security Council will do their internal straw polls as always. The P5 have different color coded-cards from the E10 [elected members of the Security Council] to indicate “encourage,” “discourage,” and “no opinion.”

The winning candidate has to have at least no “discourage” votes from the P5 meaning that they have not vetoed the final candidate. They need four to five of the rest because it still has to be a majority of the Council that agrees with the candidate and sends that name to the General Assembly. Even though there’s a push to try and get two names, so far the Council has said they will send one name.

New Zealand has the presidency of the Security Council in September and then Russia in October. Russians want to see the decision done in October.

MC: With Ban Ki-moon’s selection, when it was Asia’s turn in the regional rotation, most of the negotiations took place between the United States and China. Now with Eastern Europe under review, is it likely to boil down to negotiations between the U.S. and Russia?

RAFI: The region that is up this time is the Western European and Others Group (WEOG), but within that Eastern Europe has never had a Secretary-General. They have made it very clear that this time it’s their turn, which is why you see so many Eastern Europeans among the candidates.

Yes, this time it will be between the U.S. and Russia. I would not read too much into [the current Russia-U.S. relationship in terms of how much it will affect the process]. Countries are capable of having different compartments for their dialogues with each other. So they may not be on good terms related to some part of the world in which they are clashing right now but there are other things they can talk to each other about. These negotiations are a lot about, “If I agree with you on X, what am I going to get on Y?”

MC: How much resistance would you expect from Russia if the regional rotation system were abandoned?

RAFI: I don’t know what the final position of the Russians will be but so far it is very clear that they are still pushing for it to continue to be an Eastern European. The problem with the Eastern Europe group is that unlike the African Union Group or the Asian Group they are a region that is both within the European Union and not, which confuses the matter for the Russians. They may cherry-pick within the Eastern European region which countries they are willing to go for and which countries they are not. I think there’s a lot of fine negotiation that will take place on that basis.

MC: What about the so-called Group of Four (G4)? How have Brazil, India, Germany, and Japan weighed in on the process as part of Security Council reform and other structural issues in the UN?

RAFI: If you listen to the hearings, the question did come from the G4 to every candidate as to whether the candidates were willing to take up Security Council reform, which has kind of been a dead elephant. Candidates were very cagey, all of them, in terms of answering this one because obviously none of the P5 want to give up their power. This is unlikely to go very far.

MC: Your organization has held events and done a lot of advocacy. What have been some of the most valuable or results-oriented activities so far?

RAFI: I think the most important thing that we’ve achieved is that when we started out last year in the spring people were still referring to the next Secretary-General as he and then they started saying he or she and now they are saying she or he. So there is quite an expectation that, all things being equal, the Council will go for a woman. And we intend to continue to push that.

MC: Women in positions of power, either in the private sector or in political roles, are generally burdened with gendered double standards in which the same qualities that are seen as positive attributes in their male colleagues earn them negative perceptions and scorn. How do you see this playing out with a female head of the United Nations?

RAFI: These negative perceptions are the hurdles that we have. If we are strong, we are seen as, pardon me, bitches. If we are not, we are seen as too weak. I think this race is one where the women who are currently going for the job are already at the head of the agencies, foreign ministries, or whatever. They’ve already crossed certain parts of these burdens where their mettle has been tested. The issue here is going to be much more for Member States as to whether they can cross that mental hurdle when finally there are two candidates at the end that meet all criteria. Can they bring themselves to say this time they will weigh in favor of the woman? Because in an institution that’s never had a woman in the job you need that mindset.

It doesn’t mean the woman is less qualified. It means you have to cross that hurdle in an affirmative action mindset as an institution. And that requires a cross-regional coalition. Now there is a coalition of 56 countries, lead by Columbia, that is a General Assembly group of friends in favor of a woman Secretary-General. Some of them are from the Council but none of the P5 are members because they don’t want to commit one way or another yet.

If it turns out that the final short list is a woman and a man, then it will require that gentle push, and our organization intends to push.

MC: What do you think about the influence of having a woman as the Secretary-General on global gender inequality and women’s rights?

RAFI: The UN is the global institution of peace and security and the bulk of the victims of peace and security are women and children. Women are not a minority. They are almost 51 percent of the world’s population. If you adjust for the fact that China and India take steps to mess with the natural gender balance by aborting female fetuses, the majority of the world’s population is women. They are not reflected in economics. They are not reflected in the positions of power in the same way. But having this job in the hands of a woman I think would be a very strong message to the rest of the world.

MC: There are quite a few countries that have demonstrated their lack of willingness to address discrimination against women. Do you anticipate pushback from countries with bad records on women’s rights?

RAFI: No, I don’t think this will be reflected. For example, the United States is one country that has not ratified Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. It’s the only Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development country that hasn’t. I don’t think that will affect the U.S. vote. The two are not connected. This is part of their diplomacy, not part of what they do in their own countries.

MC: In terms of the escalating challenges that will confront the UN in the future, what would you like to see as the priority for the new Secretary-General?

RAFI: I want to see preventive peace making as the focus of the UN. That is an area which has been neglected in the past. I want to see the mediation role of the UN expanded because that is where we should have been putting our efforts and our funds and our best people in all of these crises that we are now scrambling to deal with.

MC: Do you have any advice for people at Fletcher who want to get involved at any level of this campaign?

RAFI: Fletcher is a leading think tank on a global basis. It’s also one that has enormous connections within the U.S. administration, State Department, and President’s office. There are Fletcher students in almost all the countries that are on the Security Council. I used the Fletcher directory when I was working in every country around the world. It led me to the right people. I think you have within both your current student body and within the alumni people who can be very influential on their government’s decisions on this. I would particularly say the ones from the countries on the Security Council should push in whatever interaction they have for there to be transparency in the process, even within the Security Council, and I would like them to push for there to be a woman.

The following is an excerpt from In Quest of Democracy, an essay written by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. The original essay was written before Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest in July 1989 and had been planned as part of an anthology of essays on democracy and human rights. Aung San Suu Kyi, after years of tumultuous house arrest and suffering, was released on 13 November 2010. Since her release she has continued to campaign for deeper democratic transitions in Burma as the leader, and founder, of the National League for Democracy. Around the same time as her release, the decades long military dictatorship began to initiate political liberalizations that permitted independent parties an unprecedented degree of freedom. Despite easily agreed upon positive steps toward Democracy Burma faces many obstacles and complex challenges to its ongoing democratization, particularly in terms of reconciling complicated group and individual identity politics. While this essay was originally written over twenty years ago, it presents a vision of a moral leader, a vision inspired by Buddhist legends and parables, with considerable transferability to not only guiding Burma’s democratic transition but in pointing to desirable qualities in all democratically elected figures and offers insight into discussions on resisting authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. It begins…

Opponents of the movement for democracy in Burma have sought to undermine it by on the one hand casting aspersions on the competence of the people to judge what was best for the nation and on the other condemning the basic tenets of democracy as un-Burmese. There is nothing new in Third World governments seeking to justify and perpetuate authoritarian rule by denouncing liberal democratic principles as alien. By implication they claim for themselves the official and sole right to decide what does or does not conform to indigenous cultural norms.

“The Buddhist view of world history tells that when society fell from its original state of purity into moral and social chaos a king was elected to restore peace and justice. The ruler was known by three titles: Mahasammata, ‘because he is named ruler by the unanimous consent of the people’; Khattiya; ‘because he has dominion over agricultural land’; and Raja, ‘because he wins the people to affection through observance of the dhamma (virtue, justice, the law)’…

The Buddhist view of kingship does not invest the ruler with the divine right to govern the realm as he pleases. He is expected to observe the Ten Duties of Kings, the Seven Safeguards against Decline, the Four Assistances to the People, and to be guided by numerous other codes of conduct such as the Twelve Practices of Rulers, the Six Attributes of Leaders, the Eight Virtues of Kings and the Four Ways to Overcome Peril. There is logic to a tradition which includes the king among the five enemies or perils and which subscribes to many sets of moral instructions for the edification of those in positions of authority. The people of Burma have had much experience of despotic rule and possess a great awareness of the unhappy gap that can exist between the theory and practice of government.

The Ten Duties of Kings are widely known and generally accepted as a yardstick which could be applied just as well to modern government as to the first monarch of the world. The duties are: liberality, morality, self-sacrifice, integrity, kindness, austerity, non-anger, non-violence, forbearance and non-opposition (to the will of the people).

The first duty of liberality (dana) which demands that a ruler should contribute generously towards the welfare of the people makes the tacit assumption that a government should have the competence to provide adequately for its citizens. In the context of modern politics, one of the prime duties of a responsible administration would be to ensure the economic security of the state.

Morality (sila) in traditional Buddhist terms is based on the observance of the five precepts, which entails refraining from destruction of life, theft, adultery, falsehood and indulgence in intoxicants. The ruler must bear a high moral character to win the respect and trust of the people, to ensure their happiness and prosperity and to provide a proper example. When the king does not observe the dhamma, state functionaries become corrupt, and when state functionaries are corrupt the people are caused much suffering. It is further believed that an unrighteous king brings down calamity on the land. The root of a nation’s misfortunes has to be sought in the moral failings of the government.

The third duty, paricagga, is sometimes translated as generosity and sometime as self-sacrifice. The former would constitute a duplication of the first duty, dana, so self-sacrifice as the ultimate generosity which gives up all for the sake of the people would appear the more satisfactory interpretation. The concept of selfless public service is sometimes illustrated by the story of the hermit Sumedha who took the vow of Buddhahood. In so doing he who could have realized the supreme liberation of nirvana in a single lifetime committed himself to countless incarnations that he might help other beings free themselves from suffering. Equally popular is the story of the lord of monkeys who sacrificed his life to save his subjects, including one who had always wished him harm and who was the eventual cause of his death. The good ruler sublimates his needs as an individual to the service of the nation.

Integrity (ajjava) implies incorruptibility in the discharge of public duties as well as honesty and sincerity in personal relations. There is a Burmese saying: ‘With rulers, truth, with (ordinary) men, vows’. While a private individual may be bound only by the formal vows that he makes, those who govern should be wholly bound by the truth in thought, word and deed. Truth is the very essence of the teachings of the Buddha, who referred to himself as the Tathagata or ‘one who has come to the truth’. The Buddhist king must therefore live and rule by truth, which is the perfect uniformity between nomenclature and nature. To deceive or to mislead the people in any way would be an occupational failing as well as a moral offence. ‘As an arrow, intrinsically straight, without warp or distortion, when one word is spoken, it does not err into two.’

Kindness (maddava) in a ruler is in a sense the courage to feel concern for the people. It is undeniably easier to ignore the hardships of those who are too weak to demand their rights than to respond sensitively to their needs. To care is to accept responsibility, to dare to act in accordance with the dictum that the ruler is the strength of the helpless. In Wizaya, a well-known nineteenth-century drama based on the Mahavamsa story of Prince Vijaya, a king sends away into exile his own son, whose wild ways had caused the people much distress: ‘In the matter of love, to make no distinction between citizen and son, to give equally of loving kindness, that is the righteousness of kings.’

The duty of austerity (tapa) enjoins the king to adopt simple habits, to develop self-control and to practise spiritual discipline. The self-indulgent ruler who enjoys an extravagant lifestyle and ignores the spiritual need for austerity was no more acceptable at the time of the Mahasammata than he would be in Burma today.

The seventh, eighth and ninth duties — non-anger (akkodha), non-violence (avihamsa) and forbearance (khanti) — could be said to be related. Because the displeasure of the powerful could have unhappy and far-reaching consequences, kings must not allow personal feelings of enmity and ill will to erupt into destructive anger and violence. It is incumbent on a ruler to develop the true forbearance which moves him to deal wisely and generously with the shortcomings and provocations of even those whom he could crush with impunity. Violence is totally contrary to the teachings of Buddhism. The good ruler vanquishes ill will with loving kindness, wickedness with virtue, parsimony with liberality, and falsehood with truth. The Emperor Ashoka who ruled his realm in accordance with the principles of non-violence and compassion is always held up as an ideal Buddhist king. A government should not attempt to enjoin submission through harshness and immoral force but should aim at dhamma-vijaya, a conquest by righteousness.

The tenth duty of kings, non-opposition to the will of the people (avirodha), tends to be singled out as a Buddhist endorsement of democracy, supported by well-known stories from the Jakatas. Pawridasa, a monarch who acquired an unfortunate taste for human flesh, was forced to leave his kingdom because he would not heed the people’s demand that he should abandon his cannibalistic habits. A very different kind of ruler was the Buddha’s penultimate incarnation on earth, the pious King Vessantara. But he too was sent into exile when in the course of his strivings for the perfection of liberality he gave away the white elephant of the state without the consent of the people. The royal duty of non-opposition is a reminder that the legitimacy of government is founded on the consent of the people, who may withdraw their mandate at any time if they lose confidence in the ability of the ruler to serve their best interests.

By invoking the Ten Duties of Kings the Burmese are not so much indulging in wishful thinking as drawing on time-honoured values to reinforce the validity of the political reforms they consider necessary. It is a strong argument for democracy that governments regulated by principles of accountability, respect for public opinion and the supremacy of just laws are more likely than an all-powerful ruler or ruling class, uninhibited by the need to honour the will of the people, to observe the traditional duties of Buddhist kingship. Traditional values serve both to justify and to decipher popular expectations of democratic government.”

Three years on from riots and mass arrests in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Chinese authorities continue to silence those speaking out on abuses during and in the wake of the unrest…

New testimony reveals that dozens, if not hundreds, of the Uighur ethnic minority, many of whom were arrested in the wake of the riots, are still disappeared, and that the government continues to intimidate people – including families seeking information on their disappeared relatives – who reveal human rights abuses during and after the protests.

This July fifth marks the three year anniversary of the 2009 riots in Urumqi, the capital of the Northwestern province of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. A name, explained in an earlier post, infused with perceptions of constructed history, repression, power, and resistance. This week, around the world, members of the Uyghur diaspora community will mark the day with demonstrations, from Istanbul to Washington DC. They are commemorating a day, planned as peaceful that turned violent, a reminder of rampant inequality and a history of perceived and material abuse. As media reports trickle out, documenting, as with above, the remaining culture of fear and persecution, or analyzing the causes of violence, ethnic or economic, presenting testimonials, calling for us never to forget, I thought I would provide some photos from a trip I took to the region right before the riots broke out.

In late June and early July of 2009 I traveled to Xinjiang. I could perceive a kind of tension in the air, disclosure of deep frustration at the inequality experienced as part of every day live, but there was no omen of what was soon to occur. By official Chinese figures 197 people died, over a thousand were injured. But, Amnesty and other organizations, through exhaustive research and documentation, believe these numbers to be considerably low. Particularly when you start to take into account the high numbers of those rounded up in the aftermath, the disappeared, abused, tortured, and silenced, the numbers of dead appear to be much higher.

The following images present a snapshot of life in Urumqi in the days leading up to this violence. Depicted below is a kind of superficial peace perhaps, superficial in that it would be severely rocked loose, and peace once so jarringly disturbed does not easily resettle. When I returned to Urumqi in 2011 I was shocked at the remaining level of armed police presence, automatic assault weapons and riot gear for the Chinese districts to promote a constructed fear and representation, to maintain the process of ‘othering.’ But there is no military presence documented in the images below. This is a simple presentation of encounters on the streets of an Urumqi perhaps irrevocably altered. I hope the images are able to speak for themselves to convey something of a story.

Israel nominated Mubarak for the Israeli personality of the year award. According to Al Arabiya, Israel’s Channel Two said that Mubarak was nominated for “his commitment to peace.” The article then points out that Mubarak had ruled Egypt since 1981.

This notion of peace is built on shallow political stability. It disregards actual quality of life in an alarming way. It is a concerning sentiment that does not seem to be absent in other centers of global power, namely the US congress. The Al Arabiya article goes on to quote Odi Segel, an Israeli journalist, who said that “because Mubarak was such a friend to peace in the region he should be honored.”

This is an attempt to recast the narrative of Mubarak’s ousting in a vocabulary that glorifies his repressive reign and demonizes the protestors that demanded freedom. It elicits the same discourse employed by Michele Bachmann, noted earlier, that freedom and democracy, that regional peace are merely hollow vocabularies for political expediency.

This is not an Israeli issue, although Israel is brazenly disregarding Mubarak’s rampant human rights violations and the will of the Egyptian people. This is part of the reason why Bahrain has received no substantive attention from US policy makers or media outlets. It is a reminder that the Arab Spring is not a regional issue but must be situated within a global context of policy decisions and interests.

Bearing this in mind as Tunisia goes to elections, as Egypt goes to elections, as Libya calms, as the world settles into relations with the newly formed complexions of regional power is important to guard against a return to the old system of hollow political stability in place of substantive human rights.